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Hillary's campaign may like to present her support as being both deep and wide, but for as long as she has been a national figure, one specific demographic has stood out above all the rest as adoring her no matter what: extreme feminists.
These days, most of the militant "feminazis" are getting on in years and their daughter tend to shy away from calling themselves feminists. But most of America knows exactly who these people are: women who desire the complete freedom and independence that once was the sole prerogative of young, unmarried males before the responsibilities of family-supporting and fatherhood took over the remainder of their lives.
These women in good times aspire to a "Sex and the City" life of high-wage-earning, high-spending, high-living, and high-variety sex lives. In today's Obama economy, they're more akin to the cast of Lena Dunham's "Girls" which enjoys merely the last.
At all times, though, true feminists put career first and family a distant second. However, for all that Gloria Steinem trumpeted that "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," most real women don't feel that way. A man may not be absolutely essential, but he's nice to have around.
What's more, most real women would like to have children at some point in their lives, and when that point comes, most women would like to have a man around to provide assistance in that most complex of endeavors.
Why, then, are Hillary's actions making the coexistence of these two goals - career, and family - unsustainable?
Most Americans would agree that our politics today seems more corrupt than it used to be. And yet, naked corruption of the envelope-full-of-cash sort seems to be fairly rare outside of notorious dens of iniquity like Chicago and Louisiana.
There's a good reason for this: The Clintons have discovered the ultimate loophole, which allows the baldest sort of corruption to be conducted nearly openly, yet without any risk of arrest.
Consider our century-old anti-corruption laws. There are all sorts of rules and regulations about what politicians are allowed to promise donors, how ordinary people may give money to them or their campaigns, and even what sort of gifts officeholders may accept. All these laws have one thing in common, though: they are directly targeted at the officeholder himself and his official behavior.
Based on the entirety of human history, that makes perfect sense: A corrupt officeholder, to be corrupt, has to do provably corrupt things which can be made illegal, investigated, and presented in court. Hence the standard "follow the money" type of investigative reporting that used to be common in ferreting out pols on the take.
We say that Hillary is the most corrupt national candidate in American history, as depicted by Donald Trump's catchy "Crooked Hillary" moniker. Yet there's never been any proof, and very few accusations, of the kind of clear corruption we expect to see where a stack of bills and a promise are exchanged across a desk.
That's because Hillary's true genius was to realize that, in an era where wives can have their own careers, legally-provable corruption isn't needed to amass vast wealth.
Think back over what is known to have gone on with the Clinton Global Initiative and its associated Clintonian foundations. Bill Clinton started them at the end of his presidential term, which is something most presidents have done. By definition, he was in no position to perform direct political favors in a corrupt way: he was on his way out of office, and holding no ongoing official power!
Now, it's true that Slick Willie is connected to anybody in the world who's anybody and he'll be glad to introduce you to whoever you please for the right amount donated to his foundation. But making introductions to your friends, when you are a private citizen, is not corruption and never has been - unseemly, perhaps, but no crime, and the Foundation's charitable status makes it all tax-deductible.
Likewise, if you are not an occupant of or candidate for any official post, it's perfectly legal to accept money from unsavory foreign governments so long as you aren't doing anything illegal in exchange. The primary service Bill Clinton performs in exchange for heaping piles of cash, aside from friendly introductions, is giving speeches, which is, of course, his constitutional First Amendment right.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Bill Clinton decided to run for office herself which is her constitutional right. As Senator for New York, and then Secretary of State, she was firmly enmeshed in the thick web of rules mentioned above. And, so far as we've heard, she seems to have actually obeyed them.
Technically. But a peculiar thing happened during her tenure: As the AP reported:
More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. [emphasis added]
How many people in the world would like to meet with America's Secretary of State? Countless hundreds of thousands.
How many people are rich enough to donate to the Clinton Foundation? A few hundred, maybe.
These numbers simply cannot be a coincidence. And yet, there is absolutely not the slightest shred of corruption here because Hillary Clinton, the actual holder of the office of Secretary of State, did not herself personally receive one red cent from anyone no matter what favors were done.
It's true that her husband and his foundation were raking it in by the truckload. But doesn't he have a right to earn money however he legally can? And doesn't she have a right to run for, and hold, high office?
Indeed, it would be unconstitutional for us to try to bar spouses, children, siblings, or other family members of officeholders from earning money: the Constitution specifically bans "corruption of blood" from being applied in cases even of treason, so obviously it's not allowed for lesser crimes, much less merely holding elective office, immoral though the results may be.
So, we see that Hillary has done nothing our laws define as corrupt. The Clinton Foundation and her relationship with it has violated no law. The fact that her political friends and flacks were often rewarded with cushy gigs on the Foundation payroll has nothing directly to do with her. Yet everyone can plainly see that the Clintons are corrupt through and through, despite no corruption laws being broken or even badly bent.
Now, we'll never know what Bill and Hillary might have discussed in bed at night. No, literally, we never will know - a husband and wife cannot be forced to testify against each other in court, and they'll certainly never be ratting each other out of their own volition.
We can, however, imagine:
HILLARY: So how was your day, dear?
BILL: Oh, it was wonderful, darling! Prince Muhammad wants me to give a speech to his investment group for $250,000! And he's donating $10 million to my Foundation!
HILLARY: Hmm, that name seems familiar! I think I've seen it on a list of people requesting a meeting with me.
BILL: Huh. Well, say hi to him from me. Goodnight!
As you see: no crime, no conspiracy, no smoking gun, and no proof. Just total corruption through and through.
There is no legal solution to this problem. There is only a societal one: don't elect people whose spouses are anything special. Gov. Sarah Palin's husband was a fun-loving "First Dude" who did nothing of any particular relevance to governance. Laura Bush was a librarian, a worthy calling to be sure but also not prone to corruption - how many people would pay to avoid fines for overdue books?
Michelle Obama stuck her toe in these murky waters:
Michelle Obama was promoted to vice president for external affairs in March 2005, two months after her husband took office in the Senate. According to a tax return released by the senator this week, the promotion nearly tripled her income from the hospitals from $121,910 in 2004 to $316,962 in 2005.
To her credit, though, this job tapered down to part-time during her husband's presidential campaign and then stopped entirely. Despite persistent rumors, there's no indication she ever plans to run for office herself, whereas Hillary's first words as a toddler were "If elected, I promise..."
No, when it comes to artfully brilliant corruption and legal evasions, the Clintons are in a class by themselves. We just about survived the first Clinton presidency.
But after eight more years of this, the backlash can't help but be ferocious. And the people caught in the crossfire won't be the Clintons, but rather every wife of a successful politician who wishes to have a successful career in her own right.
Is that a price Hillary is willing to charge the sisterhood? It is a price the sisterhood is willing to pay?
In other news: water is wet, and the sky is blue.